A MACD here, and RSI there, a stochastic over there,, and soon the poor wannabee Soros kisses his money goodbye... TA is mostly fraud.
What I've found is that trend lines, channel lines, moving averages, volume, and more complex indicators provide zones of interest: areas where price is more likely to do X than Y if Z. The "if Z" is key for me. I know that price is more likely (60%+ probability) to move up at least this far (X) off a rising lower trend line prior to falling no more than this far (Y) if a certain price action pattern appears at the lower trend line (Z). I know that if price breaks through a rising lower trend line by at least N ticks, it's more likely to fall at least this far (X) prior to rising no more than this far (Y) if a certain price action pattern appears following the break of the rising lower trend line (Z). It's the overall context and behavior of price around the key indicator levels that makes the outcome of each series of N trades based on those levels consistently positive. Otherwise, most trading ideas are a coin toss. It takes a lot of work to develop a trading plan to accomplish this, but I personally think it's necessary if you want to trade for a living.
Although too many indicators creates confusion, do not confuse useless with inability to use. The vast majority of traders do not know how to use indicators properly, evidence is very clear in this regard.
The problem is that all momentum indicators are ‘lagging’. I’ve been looking at Volume Spread Analysis. The premise is market manipulation, it’s a contrarian strategy. Quite interesting, it’s about following or predicting the ‘hot money’, worth a look!
Swing Trading and Underlying Principles of Technical Analysis By Linda Bradford Raschke Principle 2: Momentum Precedes Price If momentum makes a new high or low, the price high or low is still likely yet to come. Momentum is one of the few "leading" indicators. Elliott used the term impulse to refer to an increase in the market's momentum. Impulse occurs in the direction of the trend, so a swing trader should look to enter in the direction of the market's initial impulse. New momentum highs can be made both in a trending environment and on a breakout of a trading range environment. Finally, new momentum highs or lows can also indicate a trend reversal or beginning of a corrective swing up when they follow a buying or selling climax (creating a "V" spike reversal). As seen in Figure 1, buying and selling climaxes mark the extremes. The first sharp swing in the opposite direction at point A sets up an opportunity to initiate a trade from the long side at point B. The market rallies to a perfect retest of the previous swing high before consolidating further ................................. http://www.crbtrader.com/trader/v09n06/v09n06a01.asp
I rather not talk about what I use to trade or how I trade, takes a lot of money and an impressive amount of time to come up with something with an edge, you just don't give stuff like that away. However, I would say I do use conventional indicators.